When independence was declared on 4 Jul 1776, only East Tennessee was settled, most of it within what was then the Washington District of North Carolina. The following year, on 18 Dec 1777, the assembly of North Carolina created Washington County, which remained the only county in east Tennessee throughout most of the Revolutionary War. Estimated thousands of men (and boys) from Washington County fought in the Revolutionary War, the "Overmountain Boys" who, in fact, changed the course of the Revolutionary War when they fought at the Battle of King Mountain in the fall of 1781. Most of their names may never be known, there being very few extant records of the militia companies of East Tennessee. It is nevertheless probably fair to assume that a large number of those who were residing in that part of Washington County that became Greene less than two years after King's Mountain, participated in one or more military action during the War, and we are fortunate in that there are several extant early Greene County tax lists, including for the year 1783.

These extant lists include (1) the Assessors Return Third District 1783, by Henry Conway, Gidon Richey and James Dillard; (2) the Assessors Return Fourth District 1783 (by whom is not stated); (3) A list of poll taxables; (4) a List of Delinquents; (5) an unidentified Assessors Return; and (6) a compiled list, possibly including all districts. Only the first five lists are originals, part of the Calvin Morgan McClung Historical Collection of Lawson McGhee Library. These were published in the East Tennessee Historical Society's Publications as part of a tax list series that began in Issue No. 23 in 1951, and continued through Issue No. 38, the transcriptions and articles by Pollyanna Creekmore, a long-time and highly respected East Tennessee historian and archivist.

The sixth list was published by Mrs. Louise Wilson Reynolds in the April 1919 issue of D.A.R. Magazine, its origins not given, and her original source still unknown(?). It is this sixth list that has been published below, although publication of the later lists will hopefully follow.